2003

Dr. Yen Wei, Professor of Chemistry, received the 2003 Outstanding Overseas Scholar Award from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China. He also co-authored a paper entitled "Effects of Confinement and Crowding on Protein Folding and Protein Stability"

Dr. Reinhard Schweitzer-Stenner, Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry, will present an invited lecture at the 3rd Singapore International Chemical Conference, to be held December 15-17, 2003. Dr. Schweitzer-Stenner also received a three-year, $596,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, "The Use of Vibronic Coupling to Determine the In-Plane and Out-of-Plane Distortions of Metalloporphyrins in Solution and in Proteins".

Dr. Kevin Owens, Associate Professor of Chemistry, gave an invited lecture entitled "Quantitative MALDI of Synthetic Polymer Blends" at the Mass Spectrometry of Synthetic Polymer Mixtures Workshop held at the National Institute of Standards & Technology, Gaithersburg, MD on November 13, 2003.

Dr. Yen Wei, Professor of Chemistry, presented an invited paper entitled, "Wrapping DNA Double Helix with Plastics via Self-Assembly and Photodecomposition of Diazonium Salt and Diazoresin" at the 226th American Chemical Society National Meeting, Symposium on Polymer Chemistry in Nanotechnology, in New York City, September 7-11, 2003.

Dr. Yen Wei, Professor of Chemistry, has published a book "Electroactive Polymers for Corrosion Control", co-edited with Drs. Peter Zarras and John Stenger-Smith, both at Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons in California, published by the American Chemical Society and distributed by the Oxford University Press.

Congratulations to Mrs. Melissa Mertzman for a first-prize award in the Graduate Division of the College of Arts & Sciences Poster Day for her poster entitled, "Microemulsion Electrokinetic Chromatography Studies in Enantiomeric Separation Using the Chiral Surfactant Dodecoxycarbonylvaline". Melissa's faculty advisor is Dr. Joe Foley.

On Monday March 29, 2004 Interim Provost Dr. Ali Houshmand announced that Drexel University will officially confer a named professorship upon three of its most distinguished faculty members at the Convocation ceremony to be held in October of this year. The chemistry departments’ Dr. Yen Wei will become the Herman B. Wagner Professor of Chemistry.

Dr. Bruce Maryanoff (Ph.D. Drexel University 1972, Chemistry Department Alumni Award 1994) was recently named as the 2003 recipient of the prestigious American Chemical Society Award in Industrial Chemistry. Bruce will receive the award at the 225th National Meeting of the ACS in New Orleans on March 25, 2003. The citation on the plaque will read: “For his outstanding contributions to organic and medicinal chemistry, and for leadership in the discovery and development of TOPAMAX topiramate, a pharmaceutical product for the treatment of epilepsy and other CNS disorders.”

The Department of Chemistry has named Dr. Walter J. Stevens as the biennial Chemistry Distinguished Alumnus for 2002-2003. Dr. Stevens is currently the Director of the Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division of the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington, DC. He graduated from Drexel with a B.S. in Chemistry in 1967, and went on to do his doctoral and postdoctoral work at Indiana University and Argonne National Laboratory, respectively. He has published over 90 papers in peer-reviewed journals.